one of the biggest reasons i’m salty about Briar’s arc petering out in the show is that Sleeping Beauty is the fairytale about destiny.
she was fated to die from birth. even with that sentence lessened, she has no choice in the matter, no way out—when the princess turns sixteen she will prick her finger on a spindle and fall into a deep sleep, no matter what.
and the thing is they try. her parents try everything they can to keep it from happening—going so far as to destroy all the spinning wheels in the kingdom (which likely created a massive economic crisis in the process but it’s fairytale world so they probs have a few golden geese in the storehouses just for this occasion). but in the end it still happens, because the princess still meets the old woman with the spinning wheel, and she was raised well enough that she isn’t afraid to be curious and ask if she can try it. in the end, she will always prick her finger and die.
others have said it before me, but Briar is the pawn in her story, much like Raven. unlike Raven though, it isn’t society’s expectations that made her one—it’s in her story itself. she essentially inherited a tale about the futility of evading fate. no matter which way they took it, if they only just went a little further—it would have gone so hard.
as much as i adoreee Shannon Hale’s trilogy, i really wish there could have been a book with Briar’s POV. she would have hit it out of the park. (and in the end we never got a single Briar book at ALL.) Sleeping Beauty is my favorite of the “Big Five” and also my favorite of Disney’s adaptations, so i’m biased and will never shut up about it.
i freaking love how every EAH character whose parent has a distinctive physical quality has some kind of deep-seated insecurity about it. that even such a seemingly small detail could be worked into the characters, like:
Apple, who doesn’t like being blonde bc Snow White is supposed to have black hair;
Blondie, who is embarrassed about having to maintain a curl regimen in a world where a princess’s hair is supposed to be effortlessly perfect;
Holly, who doesn’t know who she is without it. her hair. all of it. as i've said before, that's why the choice to make her a twin is so brilliant! Rapunzel is arguably the only fairytale in EAH where the plot itself hinges upon a specific physical quality, meaning the identity of her character is intrinsically tied to this physical quality.
another fun detail is how fairytale magic works for certain characters according to destiny: Darling's hair dries flawlessly in like 2 minutes; Apple can be lost in the woods for hours without looking haggard; princess-y stuff like that. those little touches add that fairytale logic that i have always found particularly charming, bc it is so nonsensical.
it's really interesting how different Snow White is in the books from the show, and it changes quite a bit how you could understand Apple's character. we all know the show version: lowkey antagonistic, puts an unhealthy amount of pressure on her daughter, hates the Evil Queen. even her design is cold and severe.
but the books describe a separate character. she appears in a key scene in The Unfairest of Them All when Apple is visiting home during Yester Day (a day when students have to interview graduated fairytale characters about their stories). right off the bat you can tell their relationship is a lot better than the one displayed in the show; they're a lot more affectionate with each other, and Apple clearly feels at ease around her mother. the main impression i get whenever i reread this scene (and believe me i have read it a lot) is that Snow seems like... a good mom. she doesn't act disappointed or accusatory toward Apple for Raven's refusal to sign. Apple to some extent considers it a personal failure that she didn't persuade Raven to sign; Snow doesn't express any sentiment of the sort. she gets straight to the heart of the matter, which is the problem of division between the Royals and Rebels and the chaos that will undoubtedly ensue (and already has, at this point in the book).
in fact, it's ironic that Snow doesn't address who's in the wrong in this matter, because that's exactly what Apple is focused on. she strongly believes that going off-script is pure evil, and she wants Snow to confirm that for her--which Snow doesn't do. because Snow is a leader, and she knows that pointing fingers is not going to solve a crisis. her advice to Apple is to focus on bringing people back together first, which is ultimately the key to Apple's character arc in this book.
Apple is frustrated by this conversation because Snow's advice seems useless to her: "Just keep smiling." that isn't a very concrete solution to any of the rampant problems she's facing right now; she leaves believing Snow doesn't understand the magnitude of these problems. i don't think that's fully the case, because Snow knew the Evil Queen and had to have witnessed some part of her rampage, which would have been extremely chaotic, but we don't have details on it so that's neither here nor there.
Snow's most important advice to Apple was the line she got cut off, which is "And when you look back, look deeper." based on the context and the conclusion of Apple's arc in this book, i can guess she meant: look at them for who they are, not for who you think they are. in other words, not for who the stories say they are--which is the lens through which Apple is used to judging the rest of the world. that's indeed how she changes and grows by the end of the book, because she learns to stop assigning the roles of "hero/villain/Royal/Rebel" to her peers, and instead think of them for the people they are underneath. Lizzie, a kind-hearted girl who loves to create; Daring, who's eager to help her if she just says the word; Sparrow, who prides himself on his thieving skills; and Kitty, who Apple knows would do anything for Maddie. she even gets Cerise and Duchess to work together.
as a kid i didn't really get the ending of this book; it felt like no one had really solved the destiny conflict. no one had managed to point out how the Royals were in the wrong or fixed everything that was awful about the Rebels' situations. but that would have been too simple, which is crazy for a book written for kids, but that's what makes it so good--instead of trying to eliminate the problem and wrap everything up in a neat little bow, which might have felt really good to read but probably would have fallen very flat, the story acknowledges the problem is bigger than that and people are more complicated than that. Apple is not the villain of the story; she's just a young girl trying to take responsibility (something Raven actually has trouble doing in comparison, which is another reason they balance each other out). Snow gave good advice.
i sort of went off on a tangent there, but to circle back to Snow--in the books her relationship with EQ is very obviously not the same as in the show, as we don't know if they were even in the same class. it's portrayed as something much closer to what the original dynamic of Snow White and her evil stepmother would have been. Snow does not condemn Raven for any of her actions; she even expresses her own doubt about the way Ever After works, about how "if there's no story, it rarely happens." Apple fixates on that statement as explaining why it's bad to go off-script, but what Snow actually seems to be implying is that the lack of freedom in that area is troubling. in a sense she almost seems sympathetic to Raven.
granted. DG was set after the destiny conflict was resolved and Snow's main problem there was her daughter's popularity. however even in the books Apple's position of leadership is being threatened simply by the division between Royals and Rebels, and Snow doesn't seem at all bothered by that. but like, ultimately the books and the show were telling two different stories by that point so it isn't really worth arguing over, imo. i actually quite like Snow White in the books as i always found her interesting. of course, as people like to remind me even though the fact should speak for itself <3 the show's writing had regressed considerably by DG which explains why that one was so one-dimensional.
the point of Apple shouldering the immense burden shoved onto her by society’s expectations has been made to death. but i’d like to explore the idea that she might’ve been the one to put all that pressure on herself.
you’d have to largely ignore the show for this, as i only ever got this impression while reading the books. and disclaimer: i don’t think this is actually the case or the intention of the story. just lets take a little mind trip (and don’t consider this an argument i’m just wildly speculating for fun over here).
cuz what if no one ever told her to be the perfect princess? all they ever expect of her is to be beautiful and kind. and that’s enough, apparently—that’s “perfect.” but not to her. that’s why Apple works so hard, so that she can rise above that expectation and prove to be a great leader. it blinds her to a lot of other issues, really, like why other Royals might not be working so hard for the same thing (which we know is often bc they don’t want it).
Apple could theoretically rest easy on reputation alone bc she’s charming and sweet and famous, and she doesn’t really need to be anything else in her story. she expresses disappointment whenever people dismiss her in that manner.
of course, feeling like nobody has expectations for you is really just a guise for a different set of expectations… there’s a reason why people would think this way in the first place. also, this is all from Apple’s perspective, and it’s quite evident that’s skewed in a variety of ways (even if people like the Evil Queen successfully get under her skin via this very topic).
to conclude this little meander, i propose a foil. tune in for part 2, wherein i talk about the parallels between Apple and Duchess—
i've been seeing a lot of people argue that the "Royals vs. Rebels" thing no longer makes sense post-W2W. i don't entirely agree, though i understand that part of it was there for marketing purposes.
in general i don't much like the idea of overusing labels defined by personal ideals (that makes it easy to dismiss/dehumanize those who disagree with you, which is definitely something that we see happen in EAH, or to apply inaccurate generalizations). but we're humans, and we're kind of addicted to categorizing ourselves, and most of the time it's harmless and even helpful, so i don't think that "choosing a side" in EAH is necessarily a bad thing, either.
so, what people seem to be saying is that "Royals and Rebels" should no longer exist after destiny has been abolished. the main reason they give for this is that Royals were on the side that meant to follow the story at all costs, aka "the wrong side." i agree with that reasoning; the Royals lost the discourse. however. HOWEVER.
not all Royals wanted to perpetuate "destiny" from the start. i do not believe that all Royals supported the idea that everyone should stick to their stories--that's something only a few were shown to explicitly express throughout the series. remember the webisode "Blondie Branches Out"? Cupid says a very important line here that i think summarizes the in-universe definition of "Royal":
"Blondie, Royals make choices too. They choose to follow tradition and honor their stories."
for some reason a lot of people seem to have the impression that Royals are against choice and free will, when i don't think that's what it's meant to imply at all. Cupid said this pretty early on in the story, and Poppy O'Hair and Kitty Cheshire are good examples of other characters that were probably meant to embody this, even before the destiny conflict was "resolved." I put that in quotes because as Dragon Games exists to remind us, it obviously wasn't resolved very well Poppy's case was a lot more unserious tbh, but the point made is that following tradition and progressing forward are actually not in conflict. in other words, the labels "Royal" and "Rebel" do not fundamentally contradict each other, but are meant to be different paths that a person can choose to take. that's like... that's literally what freedom means, actually. the original conflict was never between Royal and Rebel; it was about the freedom to choose how to live your life.
so, in my opinion, Royals shouldn't be considered irrelevant after destiny was abolished. i'd argue they're actually even more relevant now that Rebels exist and the possibility of losing stories becomes realizable. i mean, new stories can only be written with the help of old ones. the existence of tradition is nonnegotiable; it's only when it's indiscriminately enforced upon people that it becomes an issue. the writers of EAH understood this, the actual Royals (not including Apple...) understood this, Rebels like C.A. Cupid understood this! after all, Ever After High is a show about fairytales, all of which are more than a hundred years old!!
now Apple's arc in Dragon Games, which deals with her fear over not being able to realize her destiny with Raven no longer slotting in as the Evil Queen, explores the aftermath to some degree. but that is a personal arc, not something shared across all Royals. Holly O'Hair, for example, is a Royal because she loves stories and is excited to live through her own (honestly, as a writer, i can kinda understand why). Royals like Meeshell Mermaid came later, so while we aren't given much insight as to why they're content with their legacies, it's likely because it's nice for them and they don't care all that much for nowww. which makes sense for royalty, if you think about it. especially as teenagers hello?? have we forgotten Cerise's iconic "we're in high school, for Grandma's sake"??
tldr: the term "Royal" in-universe refers to someone who, as Cupid explained so succinctly, chooses to follow tradition and honor their stories, in their own way.
that's how i see it. i have many more thoughts on this (DG Apple, the Darling conundrum, the disaster of a human that is Duchess Swan, etc) that i'll hopefully be able to delve into one by one eventually. also remember: context is key. not everything is gonna have real-world parallels. i might have to do a separate post on that too
Speaking of things mentioned ONLY in the books that seemed to hint at something bigger: Is it possible that Hunter's little sister, Fern, was destined to become the next Little Red Riding Hood?
Here me out: in Shannon Hale's books, Ramona or any possible future big bad wolf is never mentioned. Since her books feature characters who never appear in the series (Coral Witch, Nathan Nutcracker,in theory Darling too), It means that there was a deliberate choice on Shannon Hale's part not to have a bad wolf for Cerise, because Cerise herself is the wolf.; something the SCC doll seemed to allude too. However, another important thing is also stated about Cerise in the books - the world belives that her mother married the Huntsman, so much so that Raven points out "So you are Hunter's sister?!"
Now, in addition to being an interesting glimpse into how the world of EAH works, because it suggests that cross-fairytale relationships are allowed for "commoners", as long as they each have one child to fill their role (and it actually explains better some strange family trees, like the One of the Beautys). It does make you think: why mention the Huntsman if the village HAS other men?
Why hinted that the future Red and Huntsman are siblings? Why emphasize the fact that Hunter's little sister is considerably younger than him? Perhaps because the big bad wolf should be an adult compared to Little Red Riding Hood, who is a child,and indeed, Cerise is the same age as Hunter.
Who knows, I think there was something bigger going on.
eh?? Hunter has a little sister?? i had no idea
but you're definitely on to something...
i don't think it would have been intentional to imply that Cerise would be the Wolf and someone else Red Riding Hood, per se; i feel like the point of her arc in the books is the struggle of having a dual identity, with no clear resolution. in that case, it probably wouldn't have been necessary to consider an actual solution to the dilemma... but i wouldn't put anything past the mind of an author; it's possible she did write in all those references on purpose.
then again, knowing how author vs reader interpretations often work, it's also entirely possible the pieces fit together coincidentally. regardless, i think it's a really interesting idea 👀
previously, i’d always assumed Cerise would be destined to be Red, and some other Wolf would take over her father’s job. that might have been what they were planning, since they chose to present Cerise as Red’s daughter (which is an interesting choice in and of itself—ig bc Cerise doesn’t have a wolf form and, ofc, it’s the hero that gets the happy ending).
there are just so many other iffy variables tho… like how Badwolf was supposed to die (as Red recounts in TUOTA), but well, he didn’t, and as far as the fairytale world seems to know he doesn’t have an heir, so how did that just slide? then Ramona came along and solved that issue, but raised some new ones in the process… yeah idk, i may be going in circles here lol
also yeah, in the original story we have the age gap present between BBW and RRH, but ofc we know that Cerise’s parents were in the same class. not to mention age stuff gets all wonky thanks to the destiny system to begin with—what with Apple and Raven being in the same generation, other characters not being quite the right age for some events in their stories, etc.
i wish we could have met Fern in the books or wherever, tho… then we’d have more to go off 🤔 and then maybe there wouldn’t be a need for Ramona to exist
i feel like a character like Apple need other character who can flick her ego and challenge her ideology to actually grow in (obviously this is just one of the way, IM pretty sure there are more way to do that), because through the show we only see people either look up to her or "fighting" her (idk in the books though since i haven't read all of them), like i would love to see someone said something like "don't you think a queen must be flexible through Era and time instead of being the copy-pasted of some book??" To her, like can you see the vision??? Idk if this makes sense because i just wanted to say my fanfiction in my head that i know damn well i'll never write lol
i see the vision lol and i understand where you're coming from, but... i feel like that exists already to some extent? it's kind of how her friendship with Raven develops, imo. the show never gave us conversations where they explicitly discussed the practical ramifications of living by destiny bc, i think, 1) it would take the immersion out of the fairytale-esque vibe (a lot of things in Ever After don't make sense bc they operate by fairytale logic, and over-exposition would ruin it), and 2) it would get too political for a kids' show. i'm not talking about identity "political"--i mean it would literally be very political. most people, it turns out, find the nitty-gritty of government policymaking and social structure rather dull. not to say children's media can't discuss political situations; one example i can think of is Avatar: the Last Airbender and i'm sure there are others (Warriors? Wings of Fire?). but that is not the kind of conflict that is central to the story, which is told mainly through the characters' individual experiences within the existing status quo.
in a better world, Raven's relationship with Apple would have developed to a point where they could discuss these things. and that's how i imagine they do! but there isn't a precedent for an entire society going completely off-script in Ever After. she has no idea how a society like that would even work (a point she reiterates countless times--Raven has a hard time taking responsibility as a leader bc she doesn't know what to make of the future), let alone how to go about creating one. in a world built on the real, tangible power of legacy, how can you just... break away from that?
the problem is no one has the answers, so even the Rebels mess up when trying to trailblaze this new direction. the only queen these people know of that's ever been flexible enough to break away from tradition was the Evil Queen. so.
i think people headcanon Darling in this position as well, tho it only really works if you ship her with Apple? if Briar and Apple ever had some tough conversations maybe Briar could do it too, depending on how you envision their relationship to evolve (or devolve) post-Thronecoming. also it'd be remiss not to mention Maddie! her role as Co-President of Student Council is way too widely overlooked! her relationship with Apple is one of my favorites bc she genuinely does challenge Apple's ideals, just not exactly in the same flavor as the other non-Wonderlandian Rebels might, lol. it's still a fun and noteworthy dynamic. Apple has a lot of interesting interactions with other Rebels in the books especially, but she never gets close enough to them to have productive discussions about this sort of thing.
in general Apple is one of the very few characters who appears to have any personal interest in kingdom management. even the other Royals, excepting Lizzie, mostly take it as a matter of course. Raven herself is, i can assume, woefully underprepared in the domain of ruling compared to Apple. and there is no Rebel character who is interested in ascending a throne for purposes of leadership, so there is no one to really craft counterarguments on the same level! not that you need a royal level of education to make a compelling argument. there have been moments in the books where Apple encounters the people's common sense in funny ways. but they're not exactly interested in debating her.
Ever After is a much smaller and more contained world than ours, and their perspective is pretty incomparable to that of an outsider. yes, yes i did just pull that card; i think context matters and is missing from a lot of EAH discourse. no that doesn't mean i think certain universal principles don't apply; she definitely needs someone like that after all (and my favorite candidate is still Raven). also i didn't mean to go on for so long lol. forgive me if it ended up being irrelevant to your point! enjoy your own headcanons!!
welcome, friends and fairytales, to: another post about the lost potential of Holly O'Hair!!
i really like Rapunzel, and i really liked the O'Hairs when they were first introduced. Holly has been one of my favorites for a long time, and that's why i fantasize about a universe where the twins were properly developed, their inner conflicts explored, and their story given the justice it deserves...
see, it's my opinion that Holly had everything she needed to have a really compelling character arc... and then she didn't
long post under the cut, so buckle up!
she's a WRITER, in a world completely founded on the magic of stories.
her legacy is practically defined by a single physical trait, and she has an identical twin born with the exact same feature.
she inherits the story about the girl trapped in a system in which she has very little control of her own life but is still largely unaware of the reality around her.
the first point is rather basic. writers are always among the first to speak up about the ills of society. now, how they would have accomplished that with Holly, who writes fanfiction about her real-life friends, is admittedly somewhat difficult for me to grasp but also, i'm literally writing an essay about a minor character from a 2010s children's doll franchise so i am in no position to criticize. anyway, with how tangibly powerful stories are in Ever After, she had vast potential for doing something to public opinion on the destiny conflict, a matter that is already close to her own heart. she's a reflection of Apple in the sense that they're both characters who love stories, particularly their own, but Holly could have had a different reason to love them--Apple sees stories as a fixed portrayal of reality, while i like to think that Holly, being a storyteller, could grasp a more nuanced understanding of their nature. there was also potential here to learn how/when new fairytales are created or enshrined into destiny in Ever After. lastly, and this is slightly less relevant, i have always wanted to see her interact with Darling more; they would be such an insufferable pair of lil book nerds!
then there's the thing about the hair. i think it's fair to say that the first thing that pops into people's heads when we hear the name "Rapunzel" is "hair"? (in many languages her name is literally "long-haired princess.") very few other fairytale princesses have a detail of their physical appearance described. so it's no surprise that when they are, it becomes fundamental to their character. Snow White is a great example: the vast majority of Snow White characters in adaptations and popular media have the black hair and pale skin of the original; in Ever After, Apple's blonde hair is viewed as an anomaly. i'd argue that Rapunzel has even more of this though, bc every Rapunzel needs her long hair. without it, you (as far as most audiences are concerned) would have just another story about a maiden trapped in a tower.
that's why it was a good move to introduce not one but two Rapunzel characters! the O'Hairs' characters revolve around the question of identity, which you can see in Holly's earnestness and Poppy's free spirit = one's commitment to be "the very embodiment of" and the other's to be "anything other than." then truth strikes and it turns out everything they've believed about their legacy--in essence, what they've believed about themselves--was false. in Truth or Hair, that's accompanied by a reverse hair growth fiasco, in which Holly's hair mysteriously stops growing and Poppy's grows too fast to cut. Holly then has to figure out whether she can truly be "herself," the next Rapunzel, even if she loses the defining feature of her story. and while i think that was a cool way to explore that question, i don't think the book fleshed it out well or concluded it in the most satisfying way; nor was it congruent with the one webisode of the show that had a similar plotline.
my favorite unutilized thing about Holly tho is the fact that Rapunzel is, imo, actually a very good fairytale to prop up toward the latter end of the story. it just thematically makes so much sense! the one writer in this cast is someone completely boxed in Royal norms, completely in love with being a Royal, and yet somewhat-paradoxically questioning her own identity as a Royal. her own worldview is her tower, and bc she's safe and comfortable she won't notice anything off until it's challenged by the outside world (the destiny conflict and/or the truth about her destiny). within the context of Ever After, if Little Red Riding Hood is about straying off the given path, and Sleeping Beauty is about trying to defy destiny, then Rapunzel is about escape. it is a painful, long escape but it is Rapunzel's choice to leave that tower and find something better to live for. and even in the popular versions of the tale, that choice reaps harsh consequences, but it brings her down to earth. and man, that could have been powerful.
we can all agree Holly's easily the weakest character in the main cast. not because she never had any relevant screentime, but bc it was executed poorly. and while i find her personality charming most people think she's pretty vanilla :/ as a result we tend to get a lotta Holly-bashing in this fandom and while i can understand where it's coming from (and agree with the arguments made lol) it makes me a bit sad. so i will defend her until i die i guess
anyway, if you've made it to the end of this post, thank you for reading! this was probably not the first you have heard of my O'Hair apologetics, and it will certainly not be the last. and yes, that's a threat. <333
